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Inside Lafayette Park, a multi-event design celebration, focuses on the area’s modern architecture by renowned architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe as well as the historic predominantly black neighborhood called Black Bottom due to the rich soil found there which preceded Lafayette Park.

Inside Lafayette Park runs from April 14 through April 22 at Lafayette Park Retail, 1565 East Lafayette, Detroit and is presented by the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture (UDMSOA), Lawrence Technological University (LTU), and Wayne State University in conjunction with RogueHAA, Preservation Detroit, The Art Deco Society, Lafayette Foods, and the Detroit Creative Corridor Center.

The exhibit is comprised of:

The Settlement Shape by Milan Polytechnic’s School of Architecture is a traveling exhibition showcasing the culmination of ten years of research and documentation on Detroit’s Lafayette Park. It features models, drawings and photographs which trace the history and theories behind the visionary design of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilbersheimer, and Alfred Caldwell. After making the rounds at major universities in Europe this past year, The Settlement Shape makes its Detroit debut.

Thanks For the View, Mr. Mies is an exhibition created by Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar, and Natasha Chandani featuring photographs of Lafayette Park taken by residents Corine Vermeulen and Vasco Roma as well as reproductions of neighborhood newsletters and event invitations from the past 50 years provided courtesy of Cordelia Brown. A book titled Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies will be released this fall by Metropolis Books.Black Bottom, authored by RogueHAA, showcases the historical significance of this area once known as Black Bottom prior to the Mies’ urban renewal project. RogueHAA is a design, architecture and urban advocacy collaboration.